Friday, March 22, 2013

Truth Serum

Story of my life.
I write the stories for so many people.
Where do I start?
Where else?
I begin at the beginning.
My first questions are about childhood.
I want to know everything.
I ask for a stream of consciousness.
I ask my co-writers to shoot from the hip.
Don’t bother with grammar, spelling or punctuation.
I have people to handle that.
I want to know about your childhood.
Take my own for example.
A stream of consciousness is the same as lying in bed after taking a shot of truth serum and being taken back to your memories of another time.
My mother is trying to rip the hair out of my fucking head---she does the same with my sister---my sister would blot this from her memory and refuses to talk to me because we see things differently.
My father is a barrel chested dominating presence and he gets dressed each morning with a vast collection of clothes which are stored in a hand crafted closet which he built with his bare hands.
I look back at those days and he was more a warden than a father. He made me work in the yard while all of my friends were free to play. He never enforced the same rules for my sister. I hated him and it took years for that hate to subside.
I was in prison for 18 years and I ran from that house like a man given a pardon from the Governor.
I wanted so badly to be loved---I was never loved
And that feeling has remained with me—
When my students share their feelings of truth---I come back at them with questions and I don’t stop until a book is completed or they become distracted for a myriad of reasons.